Congressional Hearing – Week of 6-19-16

Both the House and Senate will be in Washington again this week. There is less than a month left now before the summer recess; we will have to wait and see how successful Congress is in getting the spending bills completed. There will be two markup hearings (including the DHS spending bill) and hearings on military cyber operations.

DHS Spending

On Wednesday the House Appropriations Committee will be holding their markup of the FY 2017 DHS spending bill. This hearing was originally scheduled for last week.

Military Cyber Operations

On Wednesday the House Armed Services Committee will be holding a hearing on Military Cyber Operations. The witness list includes:

• Thomas Atkin, Office of the Secretary of Defense

• LTG Kevin McLaughlin, U.S. Cyber Command

• BG Charles Moore, Joint Staff, J-39

Maritime Security Markup

On Thursday the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure will hold a markup hearing on three bills, including the as of yet unintroduced “Miscellaneous Maritime Transportation Amendments Act of 2016”. I am guessing that there will be some maritime security provisions.

On the Floor

On Tuesday the House will take up two bills of interest to readers of this blog under the suspension of rules provision. This means limited debate, no amendments and a 2/3 vote for passage. This generally means that the leadership considers the bill non-controversial. The two bills of specific interest are:

• HR 5388, the Support for Rapid Innovation Act of 2016 (Sponsored by Rep. John Ratcliffe / Homeland Security Committee); and

• HR 5389, the Leveraging Emerging Technologies Act of 2016.